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Say When

In follow up to my post on Code of Ethics for Bloggers. I just got an interesting comment from reader Gary that showed me a few links about some other peoples thoughts on Bloggers vs. Journalists and I just thought I’d share them here.

…For what it’s worth, I think journalists are unnerved and defensive because one of the mediums that they’re published on now is open to anyone to publish. They seem to feel that this is unfair. Because their access to the web is controlled, they seem to feel everyone’s should be.

Mr. Schorr, on that same NPR show, said that the internet was like a market or bazaar where anyone can come and shout anything they want and be heard by anyone who cares to listen. This is a particularly apt analogy. If we apply it to journalists on the internet, we see that it’s like making them stand on a milk crate and announce the news on the street corner just like everyone else, whereas before they had special arrangements. They spoke from a balcony with a loudspeaker.

And that’s the inversion that I think not everyone appreciates. It’s not so much that we, the bloggers have invaded the journalists’ turf, it’s rather that they’re now forced to operate on ours. A medium used to come with a certain implied or built-in credibility and certainly privilege. If you got to speak, it was sort of assumed that at least you had your facts more or less straight.

But access to a medium does not necessarily equate to credibility and really, it never has. Anyone with sufficient money can print their own newspaper. But just because something is printed on sheets of paper that look like a newspaper doesn’t mean it’s true. Trustworthy journalists and news institutions earned their stripes over the years by doing their jobs well and being proven out by facts and people’s real-world experiences… “Read at Joe’s“

Another quote:

…That’s why journalism is a craft, not a profession. There is no licensing or board testing required for journalists, and that’s just the way reporters and editors want it.

The practical outcome is that anyone can be a journalist. As part of a story we are researching for State Legislatures magazine, we’ve found nearly 60 percent of statehouse reporters for print outlets also blog, and a larger percentage say blogs have increased the amount of information about their legislature available to readers… The Thicket at State Legislatures